Related Stories

There's waste, there's mindless squandering, there's outright profligacy and then there's Tom Sizemore, the man who threw it all away. Like, everything -- friends, family, A-list career. Sizemore, 51, snorted his way through people and places and great acting gigs and eventually went to prison for a drug habit that cost him the lot.

Who cares? A lot of people do, and especially anyone who remembers how brilliant the future looked for the star of True Romance, Natural Born Killers, Heat, Saving Private Ryan, Pearl Harbor and Black Hawk Down. Sizemore is a great actor. He was excellent in tough guy roles, popular with the public and a favourite of the press for his loose-cannon approach -- it probably gave his publicist nightmares, but the actor often spoke openly to reporters about whatever was on his mind. He was funny, he was entertaining, and after a certain point in his career he was likely also stoned, but an interview with Sizemore was nonetheless something to look forward to.

How this articulate success story wound up in sex tapes, in prison or accused of roughing up girlfriend Heidi Fleiss (which he denies) is all captured in By Some Miracle I Made It Out Of There, Sizemore's new memoir about his rise and fall.

And rise. The now sober and still employed actor doesn't pull any punches in this book about his life, and the details and the language are bound to offend some people. Sizemore offers plenty of detail about his drug habit. He also spills the beans on his relationships with Elizabeth Hurley, Edie Falco, Juliette Lewis and other women, including a few he won't name, such as the big box office star ("Literally the biggest star in the world at the time,") he started sleeping with in 1989.

Sizemore describes himself as an arrogant fool in the book and says he was spoiled by success. He had the right car, the right house and the right sort of connections, including friendships with famous writers and such actors as Robert De Niro (with whom he owned a restaurant, and who tried valiantly to get Sizemore into rehab), Sean Penn and Robert Downey Jr.

And then he managed to throw it all away.

He writes, "I've led an interesting life, but I can't tell you what I'd give to be the guy you didn't know anything about. What I'd give to be someone like Tom Hanks, where, when you thought of me, you'd say, 'Oh, Tom -- he's really something else, huh? America's favourite neighbour. America's favourite son.' Of course, that's not me."

No, it's not, but at least who Sizemore is could never be described as boring. Far more interesting than his Hollywood days, to this reader, are the descriptions of his childhood in Detroit's Corktown, and tales of how his dad went to Harvard on a scholarship. Not bad, for a man whose brothers were good-natured heroin addicts, thieves and fences. Sizemore remembers clearly that his uncles were busy dealing drugs out of the front of the house when he was a child.

By Some Miracle I Made It Out of There is an amazing story. A lot of people are rooting for Sizemore, hoping he doesn't mess his life up again; the book is no doubt an important cautionary tale, but you may not want to give it to your teenagers for any anti-drug lessons. Sizemore is an addict and always will be, and as such he's sometimes a bit too good at describing the seductive qualities of drug use. Just a thought.